The two armies met below Vercellae not far from the confluence of
the Sesia with the Po,(25) just at the spot where Hannibal had fought
his first battle on Italian soil.

25. It is injudicious to deviate from the traditional account
and to transfer the field of battle to Verona: in so doing the fact
is overlooked that a whole winter and various movements of troops
intervened between the conflicts on the Adige and the decisive
engagement, and that Catulus, according to express statement (Plut. Mar.
24), had retreated as far as the right bank of the Po. The statements
that the Cimbri were defeated on the Po (Hier. Chron.), and that they
were defeated where Stilicho afterwards defeated the Getae, i. e. at
Cherasco on the Tanaro, although both inaccurate, point at least to
Vercellae much rather than to Verona.

The Cimbri desired battle, and
according to their custom sent to the Romans to settle the time and
place for it; Marius gratified them and named the next day--it was
the 30th July 653--and the Raudine plain, a wide level space, which
the superior Roman cavalry found advantageous for their movements.
Here they fell upon the enemy expecting them and yet taken by
surprise; for in the dense morning mist the Cimbrian cavalry found
itself in hand-to-hand conflict with the stronger cavalry of the
Romans before it anticipated attack, and was thereby thrown back
upon the infantry which was just making its dispositions for battle.